Composer, producer and musician Steve Plews, along with his friend and colleague Daryl Runswick, release Headlong, Hertlong after a musical dialogue developed between the two during the lockdown.
Soon after Lockdown began on March 23 2020, music effectively stopped as it had been traditionally performed and recorded. As Zoom conferences and calls replaced meetings in person musicians and composers devised new ways of creating indeed many performances and inspirational collaborations have taken place across the board of genres.
Composer and producer Steve Plews sent his friend and colleague Daryl Runswick part of an existing composition for strings he had composed and simply gave Daryl the instruction - improvise over this. He did - two double basses to be precise.
What followed throughout lockdown was a musical dialogue that both composers found therapeutic.
Both Daryl Runswick and Steve Plews are classical and Jazz composers and the music reflects this. Contemporary Jazz, Jazz Fusion and contemporary classical influences are combined to paint a haunting musical picture of a desolate time. Daryl Runswick writes: "What's the world coming to? Hell in a handcart, I say somebody said it anyway: at the time of the Great Plague, apparently, barrowing bodies to the lime pit. Appropriate huh? Music from the lockdown. Shows you don't have to be in the same room to make harmony: just in a supportive and compatible creative universe. Steve sent me some strings and asked me to improvise - I did - The Great Lie. Thus began Headlong, Heartlong - I sent him a track and he improvised and we continued to have a musical conversation throughout Lockdown - 100 miles apart.
